For many men, the greatest dating challenge is how to talk to women in the first place. What do I say to her to start the conversation? How do I break the ice? How do I keep the conversation going? How do I be engaging? These, and a million other thoughts, rush through our heads when thinking about approaching a woman, and so many men don’t. If they do, they often blank and leave the conversation.

Watch the above video to see how I teach Roger Hailes of Mansome how to talk to women in four simple steps. Through these four simple steps, you can also begin to approach and talk to women successfully. These four steps are:

Step 1: Break the Ice Within You

We have all heard about the metaphorical ice and the need to break it with other people. The idea being that the other person is cold to the interaction at first until you warm them up; however, we forget that we also have our own ice. When we haven’t spoken to anyone in the day, we are also nervous and not really fully open to conversations and where they can go, so the first and most important step is that we must first break the ice within ourselves.

In order to do this, we have to warm up our social muscles just like we need to stretch before working out. We establish a daily social practice. Your daily social practice is to talk to 5 women a day. You have to commit to this everyday before you leave your home, and even if it makes you nervous, it is critical that you do this to warm yourself up and workout your social muscle. The goal here is not to worry about getting a number or a date but merely to talk to women for the social practice and building confidence.

If you haven’t been engaging in a social practice, this will feel difficult at first. The key is that you win the moment you talk to her because you are getting the practice. It doesn’t matter how the interaction goes. Once you get comfortable with this social practice, the next challenge to push your edge is to talk to 5 women a day who you feel are out of your league.

Commit to establishing your Social Practice daily

Step 2: Lose the Agenda

Often when men try to meet women, they have an agenda. By agenda, we mean that men often have an end game in mind for the interaction, such as getting a number, a date, or laid.

For a woman, meeting a man she hasn’t met before can be an inherently high pressure situation because she doesn’t know who you are at first, why you are talking to her, and if you are safe. If you have an agenda, she will feel it, and it adds pressure to the interaction because she knows you want something from her. All that pressure in the interaction makes it inherently not enjoyable for her.

So what do we do?

We have to take a Zen approach to meeting women. It is about the journey not the destination. When meeting a woman, you need to focus on just being in the moment with her and creating an authentic connection. In this way, she is freed from the pressure of feeling like you just want to take something from her, and you are also freed from the oppressive mindset of worrying about rejection. The goal of the interaction is to see if there is a connection, and if that is your goal, you cannot be rejected because you aren’t asking for anything.

Removing the need for an outcome will not only relieve the pressure on her, but it will also relieve the pressure on you. Doing so will make you feel more confident and at ease, and when you are confident and at ease, you will be far more attractive to women.

Focus on being in the moment and forming an authentic connection

Step 3: Have Fun With It

As discussed above, meeting a new woman can feel like a high pressure situation to both of you, so you want to be conscious of the energy you are putting into the interaction. You want the interaction to be fun, playful, and easy.

The key to doing this is to be having fun. When you are having fun, it will be contagious to her as well. You should genuinely enjoy and have fun meeting a new woman. Utilize humor and be light-hearted and playful. By doing so, you will relieve the pressure of the situation and make the interaction positive for both of you.

It is also important to intersperse your fun with some sincerity and genuine appreciation of her. This is what will form your connection. By balancing being light and playful with also providing genuine appreciation and sincerity, you will form a positive connection with her.

This back and forth is also a large part of flirting. Flirting is all about the push and pull of the interaction. By pulling her in with genuine appreciation and then pushing her by being playful and engaging in this back and forth, you will create a flirtatious interaction.

Create a positive energy by having fun in the interaction

Step 4: Get to Know Her

The whole point of the interaction with a new woman is to get to know her and see if there is a connection to be made. For most men, however, this is much more challenging than it sounds. Many men attempt to get to know her by just asking questions, but this can get boring fast and put the pressure back on her.

In the New York City, the NYPD has signs everywhere that say, “If you see something, say something.” This is the principle we need to follow to get to know her in an engaging way. Instead of merely asking her questions, try to make observations about her.

You can do this in several ways such as:

Guessing about Her: You can do this by saying you are going to guess about her and then making observational statements about what she is wearing and doing at the moment to try and guess what she does or why she is where she is.

Making an Absurd Joke: You can play a similar game to guessing about her but make it humorous by making an absurd guess. For example, you could notice how colorful her dress is and how she is dancing in the park and has soft hands and guess that she must be an auto-mechanic.

Asking an Observational Question: You can also just make a simple observation and ask a question about it such as noticing her unique bracelet and asking her the story behind it.

Making observational statements allows you to learn about her and can be done in a fun way. Even when an observational statement is made followed by a question, it allows her to feel that you are present with her in the moment. This presence creates a feeling of the two of you interacting together in a bubble from the world and will help forge the connection.

Make observations and get to know her

Step 5: You can do this

The most important part of talking to and meeting women is to get out there are start doing it. Start your social practice today and have fun with it rather than worrying about an agenda. If you do this, you will start to see your success with women jump immensely.

Keep me posted on how your social practice goes and feel free to post any questions below.